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AUDIENCE

I have identified an audience for this research as social media users, predominately millennial’s. More specifically, my audience is social media users who follow and shop brands via influencer/blogger marketing. I wished to gain more insight into who my actual audience is, who the people who have participated in my surveys are. To do so, in my second round of studies I conducted ; I included demographic questions to gain a better understanding and connection with my audience. These demographic questions consisted of the person’s age, race, ethnicity, gender, and education. In doing this my audience became more defined, therefore helping my overall solution to my problem. My personal audience for this project, not the big picture audience, is majority white females. On Instagram most of my audience were millennial, while on Facebook i had a more broad range of ages. I am from Mississippi, so it came as no surprise that majority of my respondents where also from South East United States. I posted my survey I created in Survey Monkey to my personal Facebook page and had about 70 people respond to both surveys. On Instagram, I posted polls on my Instagram stories and had a wide range of responses each time, ranging about 300 responses on each.



PARAMETERS

People blindly put their trust in influencers’ opinions without no real idea of their background or knowledge base or what incentives they may be receiving to distort the opinions they represent to viewers online. The intangible parameters I am using to address this problem include the longevity of this form of marketing, people’s emotions/opinions surrounding Blogger/Influencer marketing, the willingness of legislators to deal with this issue, the ability of legislation to regulate influencers, and the longevity/flexibility of the legislation to regulate influencers in the long-run. Finally, the most important intangible parameter is the impact of this problem and solution on society. If Influencers or Bloggers continue to have free reign to take advantage of the general public with no regulation or restraint, the consequences could be a reverse form of Big Brother. Instead of the government controlling society, we could become a society unwittingly controlled by these Influencers who are being paid to tell people what to do and what to think and what to buy.

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Tangible parameters of this problem are the tools the influencers and the viewers use, such as, the internet, Instagram and other social media platforms, and Blog websites. Additionally tangible parameters would be the Bloggers or Influencers and Followers, as well with the interactions between the two and the brands or products that the Bloggers or Influencers is promoting. One tangible parameter that should not inhibit the solution to this problem is cost. The legislative solution has been enacted in other countries, such as the United Arab Emirates, where they now require all Influencers to obtain license’s similar to magazine or newspapers who sell advertising and to clearly state that they were paid to promote the product. (The UAE’s Decision) In such an instance, the regulations would generate income to offset costs needed to enforce and shut down Influencers or Bloggers operating without proper licensure. Another tangible parameter is the user’s knowledge or understanding of Influencer’s or Bloggers and their role. This is one of the biggest hurdles to overcome and would require some Social Media Public Service Announcements to educate the general public about the role of Influencers and the new legislation so that followers/users properly understand and use these Bloggers Websites in the future.